"Sorry for being me, I don't know how to be anyone else" - Spike Milligan

Saturday, 2 June 2012

Sick joke

Anna's six year old daughter Charly fought bravely against cancer for two years before she finally died. All her online followers were grief-stricken. Then they discovered the truth. Neither Anna or Charly existed, and the whole thing was an elaborate hoax*.

It seems such hoaxers are common, and they tell their stories with such convincing details that other people are completely taken in, to the extent of sending money and gifts and giving regular emotional support.

What on earth possesses people to carry out such deliberate frauds on the unsuspecting public and feel no guilt or shame at what they are doing? Are they simply desperate for attention? Do they enjoy portraying themselves as embattled victims? Do they just like the idea of fooling gullible people? Whatever the motive, they are cynically exploiting our trust in the genuineness of onliners, whom we assume to be telling the truth unless we discover otherwise.

The syndrome has been named "Munchausen by internet" after those individuals who pester health services with imaginary but cleverly-faked illnesses that call for extensive treatments and hospital admissions.

One woman called Cara, on the American west coast, conned her internet visitors that she had cancer, HIV, anorexia and heart problems. She posted pictures wearing an oxygen mask and feeding tube, and a video in which she struggled to speak. She was eventually rumbled, and vanished.

Many women fake pregnancy and childbirth, stealing ultrasound pictures and baby photos, and even using ultra-realistic dolls.

But even if the motive is attention-seeking, it's a very convoluted and laborious way of doing it. Why not just get onto a bus and start ranting and raving? Why not just go out in fancy dress? Why go to such ridiculous lengths, and why the need for such bare-faced deceit?

* Information from the Macmillan online cancer forum, which "Anna" joined. ..................................................................................PS: I've had a complaint that I haven't sufficiently acknowledged the BBC article by Jolyon Jenkins which is the source of much of the information above. I freely admit to
having reused information from his article, I'm
very happy to explicitly acknowledge him as the source, and I'm sorry if he got the impression the post was entirely my own work.

I also freely admit
that I lift material from all sorts of media sources, as do bloggers generally,
but I hope I don't give the impression that it's based on personal research.
Where I use outside material, I always link to the original source, though I
accept this may not be seen as explicit enough.

I have come across someone in blogland who pulled in a large circle of people with the stories of her 'illness' at one stage letting her blog close and faking her demise. The problem was.... curiosity got the better of her and she was found out. Naturally those who were duped dropped her like a hotcake. She is still about on the twitersphere, but I never see anyone interacting with her.

This is so sad, both for the unsuspecting and those who dupe them...How does one check out a blogger? That is an interesting question and one that could be a follow-up to this post, Nick. You raise very valid points here. Happily, I am very real and have met or received communications from bloggers who are also genuine.

I've experienced something similar to this sort of 'hoaxing' done on MSN discussion forums some years back - a whole group of people in an office setting pretended to be a single identity, hence you got a whole bunch of individual personalities bleeding into one - it went on for several years until the office group's company were taken over by another company who were 'internet adverse' to their ordinary office employees and shut down access. One of them 'fessed up' as a 'good bye' post!

I would never give money to someone over the internet. I check out my charities with sites like Charity Navigator. As for being taken in by plausible stories, I suppose part of it is being creative. I get attached to people in movies, books, TV programs, etc. and they enrich my life. I also notice discrepancies in stories told my friends on the blogs. In those cases I think it's self deception more than trying to deceive someone else. It's all very interesting, but again, I don't give money for stories over the internet.

I worked with a young man who had Munchhausen's once. It took my colleagues and I quite a while to realise it. He just seemed to be extremely unlucky, he told us about a terrible childhood with abusive foster parents, his battle with cancer, his boyfriend's battle with cancer, there were stories of muggings, rapes, kidney failure, diverticulitis, numerous hospital admissions. None of it was true, his parents were alive and well, he'd never had a serious illness and was well known at the local hospitals and emergency departments. Very sad really. He just didn't seem to be able to stop telling lies and faking symptoms.

I recall a psychiatric patient we once had who's mental condition had gone long undiagnosed and the numerous scars he had from various surgical operations by differing surgeons in different parts of the country. His body looked liked a scarred version of the 'Tattooed man'. A resident medical officer became suspicious when he again presented with mysterious abdominal pains and instead of calling in a surgeon he went for psychiatric consult! Good thing, 'cos there was nothing physically wrong with this guy.

Myra - That's an appalling story. It looks like once he started making stuff up, he just couldn't stop, it became addictive. Lucky you finally found out. You must have wasted an awful lot of sympathy and concern on him.

John D - So had this guy produced all the scars himself by self-mutilating? I wonder why he was so fixated on scars?

About 5 years ago, I was part of an online forum where someone faked an entire family's death! I had seen red flags here and there, but didn't put two and two together until well into it. Oddly, the person behind it never asked for money or anything - just prayers! It was very bizarre and she was banned from the forum, but I left shortly after because I could just never trust newcomers again. It made me suspicious of everyone.

Nick:1. No! The group just took turns in responding to discussion points directed at 'their' identity and you got a whole lot of mixed up responses. Some arguments broke out between the 'identity and other forum members so some of the other 'identity' members would step in and make the peace.

2. The guy was faking illness symptoms and surgeons were operating on him and finding nothing - hence the scars, mostly on his abdomen, a notoriously difficult area to get a definite diagnosis and when you have surgeons who are quick with their knife .........

Whilst it's good that you're making your readers aware of this issue, don't you think you should give the BBC, and Jolyon Jenkins especially, credit for completely lifting their work and passing it off as your own?

Blood probably wouldn't be as effective as a citation. I'm quite sure Joylon Jenkins didn't go to the effort of researching and writing this piece so someone else could just lift it and post it on their own blog without credit. Also, whilst the link goes to the BBC, the asterisk indicates that it links to info from the Macmillan online cancer forum, as the link in the original article did.

Anonymous - I freely admit to having replayed information from the excellent article by Jolyon Jenkins, I'm very happy to explicitly acknowledge him as the source, and I'm sorry to have caused offence by giving any impression the post was entirely my own work.

I also freely admit that I lift material from all sorts of media sources, as do bloggers generally, but I hope I don't give the impression that it's based on personal research. Where I use outside material, I always link to the original source, though I accept this may not be seen as explicit enough.

I was approached by someone who wanted me to publicize her financial dilemma on my blog....a thing that I didn't quite feel quite right to me.she could have been genuine... but something told me that she was scamming me ( well trying to)

(Just noticed you have lots of comments form Anonymous. That always makes me suspicious.)

It's the genuine people like me about to be thrown out of her home because her husband's been diagnosed with chronic Crunkhamper disease and is unable to work and pay the mortgage. Or even buy food for my six starving children - four of whom were adopted to be saved from abusive families. But I never complain.

I've come across some extremely dubious people on the internet. Even more sad than that, some of the people I met up with were even more dubious than they seemed online! Genuine people, don't get me wrong, and not psychopathic, but very, very hard to deal with and inclined to sabotage friendships - hence the need to find them online, I suppose. *Sigh*

As to Anonymous - why not give your real name? Why hide?

Everyone is entitled to search and rehash. If pieces of the article were lifted verbatim then there'd be cause for complaint, but taking facts from here and there and writing a new piece (with links to the original works) is surely acceptable? I always acknowledge sources and copyright owners (should I get permission to use a picture) but if we're not allowed to write about anything unless we've interviewed the person/people ourselves and done the detective work personally, well, I guess not very much would get written!

But on to the attribution issue. I didn't see this until after your clarification, but the link in the text seems fair enough.

I might have said something like - see this story by Jolyon Jenkins - with all that text highlighted to be clicked on. I think that would be better and fairer. But I don't get the impression you were trying to be anything other than transparent.

The other approach that allows you not to worry about attribution at all is to make it all up. Like someone I know. A friend. Not me.

About Me

I've known my partner Jenny for over 35 years. Currently working for a voluntary organisation, I was previously a journalist, bookseller and charity worker. I enjoy the company of my partner and friends but I'm not a wild socialiser. I love walking in the country and just quietly reflecting on life. Disillusioned with living in London, Jenny and I moved to Belfast in 2000. We're still in Belfast and we think it's a fabulous city.